Our World

Remember El Niño?

A few chapters ago we learned about the weather phenomenon of El Niño and the effects it can have, but not only on South America. I just found this article that exhibits how El Niño affected our weather in the U.S. this fall.

This year's hurricane season in the Atlantic was focasted to be an active one when in June forecasters predicted 17 tropical storms and 5 major hurricanes with winds greater than 111 mph would form this season. Strangely, with the end of the season today, we see that there were only nine tropical storms, the last of which occured in October. From those, only two evolved into major hurricanes, which made this year seem weak especially when compared to the last two years in which 13 major hurricanes were recorded.

A Hurricane Researcher at Colorado State University states that this sudden drop of activity resulted from the arrival of El Niño unusually late this summer (Normally, El Niño will form in the spring). El Niño had an opposite effect on the Pacific Ocean, where it warmed the water and pushed the number of storms above average (17 recorded, 10 formed into hurricanes, six of those classified as 'major hurricanes', all over the average recordings (16, 9, 4)).

Of course we can't talk about weather patterns without bringing up Global warming. I know, this topic is brought up over and over, and for that reason I am only going to mention that the article includes a small portion of debate between the groups of people who believe these storm patterns are changing because of global warming and those who claim it is just part of a decade-long cycle that is natural. One thing is for sure: Numbers of tropical storms and major hurricanes has increased recently - as much as 15 per year since 1995. In fact, just the last three seasons averaged 19 tropical storms each.

The point mainly is for me to show that we are affected by El Niño. In fact, it is possible that our recent period of warm weather and the sudden cold snap is related to the same phenomenon that caused a calmer hurricane season.

Mild U.S. Hurricane Season Defied Predictions

posted by Anonymous @ 11/30/2006 09:37:00 PM